There
has been considerable debate over who “won” the recent
fighting in and around Gaza, though the question itself might lack
relevancy as both sides have largely returned to the status
quo ante. Hamas
has indeed proven itself capable of resisting Israel and has gained
the respect of its Arab neighbors while its political opponent Fatah
has again looked weak and vacillating. That many of the frequently
homemade Gazan rockets were able to penetrate Israeli defenses and
even strike near Tel Aviv is also being promoted by some as a game
changer, but in reality the actual impact was more psychological than
lethal. Israel blinked because it had become clear that there were
no real military targets remaining in Gaza and only civilians, many
of them children, were being killed. Continuing the air assault or
initiating a ground invasion would only lead to a major public
relations victory for the Palestinians in the court of world opinion.

Pundits
taking their cue directly from the Israeli Foreign Ministry did not
necessarily agree, quickly claiming that Israel had won because,
suffering minor losses itself of only six killed it inflicted serious
damage on the Gazan infrastructure while killing 163 Palestinian
“terrorists.” Israeli government sources maintain
that “all objectives were reached,” presumably meaning
that the ability of the Gazans to continue to fire homemade rockets
at Israel had been seriously degraded, which may or may not be true.
On a political level, Netanyahu’s tough response to the Gazans
had been originally regarded as a vote winner in the lead up to
January elections, a consideration that certainly entered into his
willingness to go to war, though many Israelis are now dismayed that
he did not go far enough.

But
stopping the rockets and a display of military prowess before an
election might not have been the actual objectives. More ominously,
some media both in Israel and the US have described the timing and
the nature of the Gaza offensive as a test
run for an attack on Iran. If that was the true motivation
behind the Israeli attack, it means that a war may have been started
just to test Israel’s missile defense system under realistic
conditions. If so, “Operation Pillar of Defense” would
be comparable to the Germans and Italians using Spanish “live
targets” to evaluate the performance of their new weapons in
1937.

Other
reports from Israel and also some analysis of the fighting by
American experts reveal that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
appears to have considered his country’s ability to intercept
many rockets from Gaza as a sign that Iranian missiles, should he
choose to attack that country, can be similarly defended against,
bolstering his government’s absurd claims
that a war with Iran would not kill more than 500 Israelis. The
Israeli government has insisted that between 84% and 90% of incoming
rockets from Gaza were intercepted, but a Ministry of Defense account
on November 21 says otherwise: “Since the beginning of Operation Pillar of
Defense, the army says that 1,382 rockets fired from Gaza have struck
Israel, with another 389 intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile
system. Of that number, 138 rockets hit Israel on Tuesday, killing
the two Israelis. Another 51 were intercepted by Iron Dome, the
military said.” Other estimates suggest the 70% of Gazan
missiles and rockets landed in Israel without being intercepted.

The
Israeli government response to those numbers has been to claim that
most of the hits were on parts of the country not protected by Iron
Dome. It has promised to accelerate plans to cover more of the
country beyond the current configurations along the border with
Lebanon as well as surrounding the cities of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Iron Dome is largely funded by the United States even though Israel
is working assiduously to market it internationally to nations
including South Korea. The cease fire agreed to last week was
sweetened
by an offer from President Barack Obama to have the US taxpayer cover
the costs for still more Iron Dome.

Israel’s
missile defenses might, in fact, be of questionable value. Consider
for a moment the economics
of Iron Dome. There are currently five operational units that
are towed to the sites where are they deployed. They have cost $50
million each. Israel eventually wants to deploy thirteen of them,
all paid for by the US taxpayer. In the recent fighting, the units
fired an estimated $25-30 million worth of anti-missile missiles,
with an estimated per unit cost of $50,000. The “onslaught”
from Gaza was insignificant compared to what would be coming Israel’s
way from south Lebanon and Iran if a major war were to break out.
Iran has modern ballistic and cruise missiles some of which might
have enough range to reach Israel while Hezbollah in Lebanon also has
considerable capabilities, including drones for targeting inside
Israel, and an arsenal sometimes estimated to include more than
40,000 missiles of various types. The Gazan weapons were largely
homemade sometimes using Iranian avionic parts smuggled in, even to
include the one copy of an Iranian Fajr-5 missile that was used and
successfully penetrated Tel Aviv’s airspace to destroy a
building. The missiles more commonly launched, a modified Qassam,
lack sophistication but cost about $100 to construct. In a war of
attrition against its neighbors, Israel would be attacked from all
sides by wave after wave of missiles and rockets that would overwhelm
the defenses and it would quickly go through its own stock of
defensive missiles costing $50,000 a pop to engage the much cheaper
weapons that would be incoming. It is reminiscent of Rudyard
Kipling’s poem “Arithmetic on the Frontier”
describing how a highly educated British officer might get picked off
by an illiterate Afghan peasant “blessed with perfect sight”
wielding an ancient musket — “The odds are on the cheaper
man.”

And there is also another larger issue which goes beyond the
viability of Iron Dome, that of yet another possible war crime being
committed by the Israeli government. The Nuremberg Trials
established that initiating a war of aggression is the ultimate war
crime in that all other evils spring from it. Israel argues that
it punished the Palestinians in response to rocket attacks on
southern Israel coming out of Gaza over the past year. But the
largely homemade rockets did little damage to Israel and killed no
one. Many observers believe that most of the rockets were rogue
operations not condoned by Hamas carried out in response to Tel
Aviv’s strangling of the Gazan economy and its deliberate
policy of starving
the Palestinian population. One has to assume that Israel knew it
was not seriously threatened and was picking the time and place to
obtain its revenge based on other, mostly political, considerations.
It targeted and then assassinated the Hamas security chief Ahmed
al-Jabari, who reportedly had come up with a plan
for a permanent truce with Israel. Al-Jabari’s death put paid
to any peace efforts and served as a deliberate provocation leading
to Palestinian retaliation and a plausible casus belli,
suggesting that it was a staged event. If the war was initiated just
to test a missile defense system and to prepare the Israeli people
for a possible future conflict it is beyond outrageous. Not only was
Netanyahu preparing to kill largely defenseless Palestinians, he was
also putting his own countrymen at risk and again wittingly involving
the United States as an accomplice in his own reckless behavior.
Israel and its friends are fond of saying that there is a madman
loose in the Middle East when they refer to Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, but in truth there is only one madman who is assiduously
seeking war and more war and that is Israel’s Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu.

201204264622 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2Fgiraldi%2F2012%2F11%2F28%2Fnetanyahus-war-crime%2FNetanyahu%27s+War+Crime2012-11-29+06%3A00%3A07Philip+Giraldihttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2F%3Fp%3D2012042646 to “Netanyahu’s War Crime”

Nutanyahoo is guilty of a lot more then one war crime. Today they will vote to admit Palistine as a UN auxilllary member. That will allow Palistine access to the International courts for war crimes. I hope Nutanyahoo and Liberman are hauled before the courts for their crimes along with a lot of the military and civilian leadeship in Israel. The US and Germany have been pressuring the Palistinians to not use the courts against Israeli war criminals. The Palistinians have refused to go along. The US and Germany are now trying to get war criminals out of paying for their crimes. Well Obama, Bush Cheney, Biden, Powell, the Clintons, all should be tried too. Shame on the Germans for trying to cover up for these criminals, as well.

I think that America should provide an Iron-Dome launcher to every Israeli household. It's not fair that Israelis, the world's biggest occupiers (next to the U.S.), should have to worry about being hit by a missile fired by those under occupation.

There may an additional reason for calling off the rape of Gaza. Does Tel Aviv have confidence in its army? The IDF has always been a third rate force fortunate to be surrounded by fifth rate armies and armed with free high tech goodies compliments of American taxpayers.

In 1973 the Isrealis had their butts kicked until the US parachuted in billions in emergency aid that denuded our stocks in Europe. They had to withdraw from Lebanon, forced by Hezbullah, and when they attempted to return their performance was pathetic. The IDF is too cowardly to take casualties.

Netanyahu called up 75,000 reservists and placed them on the border. He then faltered. It may well have been because he rightfully has no confidence in his troops if they actually have to face harm's way.

Good article. I can well believe that the neo-nazi rogue regime in Tel Aviv would consider unarmed innocent Palestinians as fair game for testing their weapons. They have shown their supremacist attitude to Palestinians over and over again, by word and by mout. In a nutshell the Israeli barbarians regard the Palestinians as untermensch.

And Barack Obama .romney was just a potential war criminal. Obama is a died in the wool one, with a lot of deaths on his soul. Romney should thank his Mormon god that he won't have the opportunity to committ war crimes. Of course he backs Israel's crimes as well as Obama does.

That Palestinians might gain access to the ICC is a good thing. Now, whether the ICC would ACTUALLY do anything regarding Israeli war crimes is an entirely separate argument. Seems the Bushco war criminals are free as free can be. Considering that T. Blair is making serious bank from being a war criminal speaks volumes about the utter hypocrisy of the ICC.

Mr Giraldi,
You've implied but not uncovered the fact that this crime was a marketing ploy on behalf of Israel in order to answer its doubtful and potential customers for the so called "iron dome" by countries such as S Korea and others.

Bibi's war crimes will be salvaged by…At an Israeli air force base not far from Tel Aviv, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will supervise construction of a $100 million five-floor underground facility for the Israel Defense Forces termed “Site 911,” and no one in the press, including The Washington Post’s national security reporter, seems to know its precise purpose.

According to construction plans, “the facility is to have classrooms on Level 1, an auditorium on Level 3, a laboratory, shock-resistant doors, protection from nonionizing radiation and [of course] very tight security,” the Post’s Walter Pincus writes.

Site 911 will be the latest in a long string of construction projects the U.S. has undertaken for the Israeli military, including underground hangars for fighter bombers, facilities for the handling and storage of nuclear weapons, training bases, and command and intelligence centers. At roughly 41,000 square feet per each of its first three floors, the new site appears to be one of the Corps’ largest projects.

No one appears able to say exactly what will happen on those floors though. In an article in the Post, Pincus spent three paragraphs describing how the complex WILL BE BUILT ACCORDING TO JEWISH LAWS.

No omop, it an underground high tech rathole. When the freedom fighters come calling those Israeli rats have to hide somewhere comfortable you know. Americans are so nice and generous, in their darkest hour of need they give to rats in distress. How satisfying.

Based on comments made yesterday during a joint Leon Panetta/Ehud Barak Pentagon press conference, it seems as though Israeli policy is actually rooted in bleeding heart concern for "the people" of the middle east……

Barak also offered an implied critique of how the Obama administration was handling the civil war in Syria and the Assad regime's brutal response.

"It's criminal behavior on a global scale, what he's doing to his own people, using jet fighters and helicopters and artillery and tanks, killing his own people," Barak said. "The whole world is watching. And somehow, it's not easy to mobilize enough sense of purpose and unity of action and political will to translate the — our feelings about what happens there into action to stop it. And that's one of the lessons I have took from the last few years in the Middle East."

I'm sure it pains Mr. Barak to see "people" treated in such a way and unable to do anything about it… Does the 'International Community' not feel for Ehud and Israel here? His message seems clear: 'do something about Syria'…for "the people"…